


When I Believed in Nothing

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-15
Updated: 2011-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:29:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You may leave, but you never forget. Thanks to CaptainBlue for betaing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I Believed in Nothing

If he hadn't fallen in love with Erik, things would have been different. But of course, if he’d known that, perhaps he wouldn’t have fallen in love with Erik.

He certainly wouldn’t have chosen waking from old, chaotic nightmares -- _Erik's_ nightmares -- to a house that was often almost empty, that no longer felt like home.

Were the surgical instruments Shaw's, or was that a stray memory of his own, as the doctors fruitlessly tried to preserve some level of sensation? Did it matter? Either way, he woke to pain, terror, helplessness. Woke alone.

At least Hank stayed at the mansion, though his regret and self-loathing could be as tiring as solitude. Havoc and Banshee were increasingly active, continuing to recruit and do the work of heroes. Thanks to their efforts, the number of students increased to five, and Charles felt a secret itching in the back of Alex's mind that a sixth might be in the offing. He wouldn't push Alex, though. He wasn't prepared for another disaster.

He drank his coffee and read the _Times_ and pretended, sometimes, that he was just sitting, waiting for Erik to come down so they could have breakfast. Erik's eggs had always been little short of a disaster. Charles missed them.

Hank bounded down the steps and stuffed a donut into his mouth. "You saw it?"

"Saw what?"

Hank was always two steps ahead. Often three. He was already flipping through the pages of the newspaper, biting his lower lip in concentration. His claw rested on an ad in the _Miscellaneous_ section of the classifieds. _X: Do you remember the Shabbos lights? They do not burn so bright without you._

"Is it code?" Hank asked, overeager puppy that he still was.

Charles weighed his options and settled for enigmatic. "Of a sort," he said.

After breakfast (in the end, he'd settled for a donut), he sat at his desk (designed specially for a wheelchair, and particularly hated for that reason) and composed a reply.

 _They still burn, my friend. Are your dreams still troubled? X._

He slept better that night than he had since Erik left, a candle flickering in his dreams.

The messages did not come regularly, though he was always prompt to reply. Of course, Erik was obligated to keep moving, as Charles was to remain in place, each of them fighting their own private wars against the shadows, and each other by extension.

But Erik still wrote, and though the dreams still came, they lost a bit of their sting. In winter 1964, he woke cold with sweat (it took several anguished minutes before he could reassure himself that his mother had not been murdered before his eyes). When he had calmed enough to rise, he sat on the edge of the bed, shivering a bit, and stared at the fireplace. He glanced at the clock: he'd gone to bed early. It was still Friday night.

The memory was not his, but the light still shone: _Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam._ Not his faith, but he felt the sacredness of the words, the warmth, the peace. “Shabbat shalom," he whispered to the darkness. "Peace to you, old friend."


End file.
